The third installment of the Bioshock universe has been announced by Irrational Games. GameInformer has screenshots and the trailer that will suck you in as usual.
For me I think it started with Diablo II ten years ago. I had been a big fan of the original Diablo and Blizzards work. I had heard that they were going to offer two versions of the game when they released it regular and collectors editions. The collectors edition in addition to the game came with a copy of the Diablo Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper campaign setting, and cut scene movies for other Blizzard games. The price difference was considerable but not outrageous and I opted for it.
Incidentally Diablo III
Does this approach to adding items such as gadgets, memorabilia, art, behind the scenes footage, audio cd’s, etc work? Some times it does. There are gamers out there who covert these special editions the same way that baseball card and comic book collectors build up their own secret vault of archived goodies. There are other gamers, like myself, who are willing to shell out sometimes double the cost of the game itself for such items.
Just reviewing the last few years shows that when a company has a killer title or property they know they can shave a few more ounces of your hard earned cash from your wallet and we will continue to pay with a distant smile of geek happiness as we do.
2007
Brought us Halo 3 and a replica Master Chief helmet.
2008
Saw me shelling out for Fallout 3: The Survival Amazon Exclusive.
2009
Was ruled by Modern Warfare 2 which offered up night vision goggles and I passed up on this one.
2010
So far this year we have:
Coming soon incarnations of this shiny extra laiden approach to selling games include:
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Which comes with a remote control car that has a built in video camera that can transmit images over wireless.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare is one of the biggest titles that ever hit the Xbox 360. A first person shooter with an engaging single player campaign which was set in the present for once. The multiplayer is what really shot the game to huge popularity though.
Modern Warfare 2 was announced at E3 this year and yesterday details emerged about the various editions players can acquire the game in. The big news though was the Prestige edition:
* Features Modern Warfare 2 full game
* Includes fully-functional, wearable, adjustable Night Vision Goggles with individually numbered and engraved Collector’s Stand. Custom-designed and painted goggles allow sight in absolute darkness up to 50 feet in black & white or night vision green.
* Call of Duty Classic full download-able game – for the first time ever, play the original classic Call of Duty game on consoles
* Hardbound art book “Behind the Lines”, deigned by artists at Infinity Ward, featuring the art of Modern Warfare 2
* Includes premium, special-edition Steelbook case with custom artwork by Infinity Ward
Yes you read that correctly this edition of the game comes with fully functional night vision goggles. This thing will presell like mad. For $150 you can grab pre-order yours now. Me, I’m going to pass I do not think Mrs Ubernerkle can trust me with that sort of tech in the house.
Gamastutra.com talks with David Gaider lead writer for the upcoming Bioware title Dragon Age: The Stolen Throne.
Big Surf Island is coming for Burnout Paradise this Thursday, 1000 MS point price tag.
Microsoft Kodu coming this month, create your own games.
Rumored PS3 Price Drop coming in August, to the tune of $100.
IncGamers.com shares the news that Starcraft II will allow players to use the new BattleNet without a monthly fee. Bioshock 2 Fact Sheet via VG247.com shares details of both single and multiplayer elements in the game. Mass Effect 2 combat footage video thrown up by the folks at Gamersyde.com.
Kotaku.com shares their experience with Warhammer 40K: Space Marine, looks like another one for the GameFly queue. Engadget.com presents a nice comparative article on the new motion controller systems that were shown at E3 this week. Iron Maiden tracks for Rock Band, June 9th.
Overlord 2 has a demo up on Xbox Live. The boys at Kotaku.com were less than impressed with Bioshock 2 Multiplay hands on. Engadget.com however had two hands on for Ultimate DJ and DJ Hero. In the mean time Gizmodo.com got to muck about with Xbox Natal and they took a look at the Guitar Hero 5 controller.
Videos of Fallout 3 Point Lookout and Mass Effect 2 Gameplay footage.
1Up.com tells us that Wii Sports Resort is going to include Archery, Sky Diving and Basketball. Kotaku tells us about Wii Fit Plus and also bring us some screen shots from the upcoming Secret of Monkey Island redux, coming to PC and Xbox Live.
DJ Hero details and a video from Engadget.com who caught footage from an Activision event at E3. My inner Trace Head and Raver is going to end up buying this game. I can tell.
Sony had their E3 Presentation today. I’m just going to pretend Nintendo didn’t even have theirs. Sony touched on the following titles:
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, MAG, Assassins Creed 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy XIV, Mod Nation Racers, The Last Guardian, Gran Turismo 5, God of War 3
and for the PSP:
Gran Turismo, Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker, Resident Evil, Little Big Planet, Monster Hunter and Assassins Creed Bloodline
Along with the PSP titles they announced the PSP Go with digital download content, integrated wifi, 16GB of internal memory, integrated blue tooth plus and M2 expansion port. PC based media manager called Media Go, PSP Go. $249 available Oct 1st.
Their other big news though, much like Microsoft, was their new Motion controller tech. Launch Spring of 2010.
Today saw the kick off of E3 2009 expect a lot of video game related news to be coming out all week. Day 1 has been largely dominated by the Microsoft press event. The theme was ‘More show, less tell’ and it worked well. The games announced and covered spanned:
Metal Gear Solid: Rising, Forza Motorsport 3, Halo ODST, Halo Reach, Shadow Complex XBLA, Splinter Cell Conviction, Crackdown 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Final Fantasy XIII, Beatles Rockband, Alan Wake and Modern Warfare 2.
The big wow factors were focused more around the Xbox as a media platform than a pure gaming system. 1up.com covers both the news that Xbox will now support Facebook and Twitter integrations and 1080P Streaming will be supported from Netflix and there own spin on Natal. Kotaku.com picked up on another new service coming to the platform Downloadable full Xbox 360 games no disc required, this toe dip into digital distribution should prove to be an interesting experiment by MS.
Another tid bit of info for my fellow Blizzard junkies out there, GossipGamers.com quotes the Blizzard CEO as saying “Starcraft 2 release target end 2009“, of course the usual Blizzard foot note of “It will be ready when its damn well ready!” still holds.